Mehmed the Conqueror landed in Italy with 7000 Turks in 1480. As a consequence it was proposed that, in the name of Christendom, the Italian states should stop quarreling. Apologies were made, the pope forgave, and support against the Turks was promised. A few months later Mehmed died and the Turks left Italy and peace in Italy seemed assured.

Mehmed II was Sultan of the Ottoman Empire for a short time from 1444 to September 1446, and later from February 1451 to 1481. At the age of 21, he conquered Constantinople and brought an end to the Byzantine Empire, absorbing its administrative apparatus into the Ottoman state.